These ranged from an Internal Revenue Service bid to adopt accounting measures considered oppressive by new-vehicle retailers to proposed legislation that allegedly threatened the viability of dealer-financed consumer loans.

Fittingly, Tonkin takes his final bow to the strains of “Truckin’” by the Bay area’s favorite sons, the Grateful Dead.

And he concurs with the lyric, “What a long, strange trip it’s been.”

Next Conference Item Verdi’s “Rigoletto”?

Special Coverage

The Westin Saint Francis, one of the grand hotels of San Francisco, looms above Union Square but is equally impressive inside, including some of its meeting rooms.

The American Financial Services Assn. held its annual vehicle-financing conference (in conjunction with the NADA confab) in an ornate room with wall murals, gilded columns, chandeliers and mezzanine-level loge box seating overlooking the main floor.

The setting prompts association officer Frank Armstrong to say, “I feel like we’re holding this meeting in an opera house.”